Nudists want undercover female police officer to flush out perverts

Today's Northern Star reports that a nudist beach near Byron Bay has become a haunt for perverts and weirdos, and locals want to see it cleaned up. ..........

Women say they no longer feel safe to walk there alone because of the atmosphere and the unwanted advances they receive from men.

Less than two weeks ago a woman had to call police after a man began to follow her and act suspiciously.

“It used to be a family-friendly nude beach, but in the last few years it's got a real seedy element,” Tyagarah resident Cyd Saunders said.

The mother of two regularly takes her children, two and five, to the beach but said it was becoming impossible to relax..........

Mitra Ardron said he would like to see more enforcement from police and rangers to 'catch people in the act'.

“If they sent a female officer down there undercover that would fish them in straight away,” he said.

“And you don't have to catch many for the word to get around.”

Inspector Owen King, of Byron Bay police, said officers from Mullumbimby and Brunswick regularly patrolled the beach and with greater frequency in the summer months.

He said the recent complaint from the woman at Tyagarah Beach had been followed up immediately, but police were unable to locate anyone on the beach that matched the description given.

Inspector King encouraged anyone who witnessed offensive behaviour to report it to police.

Cyd Saunders agrees.

“The community needs to make more of an effort to report (offensive behaviour) to police and to be proactive in telling these people to move on. I am not against nudity on the beach. I just want to feel safe,” she said.

Source: The Northern Star

North Coast Voices Administration: Apologies for changes made to this post after publication. Unfortunately the original Northern Star article contains words which are often blocked by filtering software.

And the winner is - Stephen Conroy!

Surfing the Net earlier today and thought North Coast Voices might be interested in this.

Among the British ISPA Awards 2009 winners was:

Internet Villian: Stephen Conroy and the Australian Government

The Internet Villain category recognises individuals or organisations that have upset the Internet industry and hampered its development - those who the industry loves to hate.

Maudie's Ex
Yamba

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

Nationals desperate to erode Saffin's Northern Rivers electoral base?

Out of federal government and obviously hurting, the National Party of Australia is rumoured to be making a concerted effort to undermine Labor's sitting Federal MP for Page, Janelle Saffin.

To that end the Nationals have suggested to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) that it undertake a little tidying up of the current boundaries between Page and Cowper which is currently held by Nationals MP Luke Hartsuyker.

It is no accident that the town it wants to tidy up into Cowper is Yamba, which co-incidentally strongly supported Saffin at the 2007 election and predominately voted Labor consistently over the last few state and federal elections.

The exchange the Nationals are suggesting to compensate for Yamba's removal is to include in the Page electorate a couple of areas with what are believed to have traditional Nationals profiles.

The Nationals seem to believe that Luke Hartsuyker would easily win over Yamba hearts and minds if Yamba voters were to find themselves in his electorate at the next federal election and, that Janelle Saffin would find it difficult to maintain her seat in light of such a voter loss.

It is interesting to note that the Liberal Party submission proposes no changes to the electoral boundaries of Cowper, Page and Richmond. This flies directly in the face of the Nationals wish list for the NSW North Coast.

Unsurprisingly the Labor Party's counter move, to the Nationals attempt to place more Nationals-leaning areas in Page, is to lobby for Maclean to be removed from Cowper and placed in the Page electorate.

National Party of Australia submission to the AEC, May 2009
Liberal Party of Australia submission to the AEC, May 2009
Australian Labor Party submission to the AEC, undated
Full list of submissions on proposed 2009 federal electoral boundaries redistribution
Comments on submissions

Woke up with a vacant sensation between your journalistic ears? Then publish a viral email!

Click image to enlarge

The editor of that APN newspaper The Daily Examiner of Grafton in the Clarence Valley was obviously having a lazy day when he decided that those paying top price for the Saturday issue should be treated to the re-publication of one version of a hoary old copyright article from last century, which has become over time one of those ever-adapting viral emails which clog our PC inboxes from time to time.

At the time of writing this it had last turned up on a blog on 18 June 2009 in what appears to be the version Peter Chapman used.

Unfortunately a hard copy newspaper doesn't have a handy delete button, so a prolonged groan rang out across the valley from the many who had already read the supposed London Times obit in various forms over the years.

Common sense may not actually be dead but there is certainly a dearth of it at The Egg Timer these days.

2009 NAIDOC Awards

Awards encompassing Elders, youth, art, education and training, and sport were announced at the National NAIDOC Ball in Brisbane on Friday night.

Professor Larissa Behrendt (above, left) was named 2009 Person of the Year while Professor Lowitja O'Donoghue (above, right) received a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The other award winners were:

* Doris Eaton of Perth and Elsie Heiss of Sydney - Female Elders.

* Frank Lampard from Adelaide and Reginald Knox of Brisbane - Male Elders.

* Chelsea Bond (below, left) of Brisbane - Scholar of the Year.

* Gemma Benn (below, right) of Darwin - Youth of the Year.

* Danny Sebasio of Thursday Island - Apprentice of the Year.

* Andrew McLeod of the AFL Adelaide Crows - Sportsperson of the Year.

* Wayne Quilliam of Melbourne - Artist of the Year .

Image credits:
http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/cie/community/Alumni/alumni.html
http://www.crcah.org.au/educationandtraining/chelsea_bond.html
http://www.koorimail.com/
http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/generations-torn-apart-by-indifference/2007/02/16/1171405447732.html

A warning sign for the Rudd Government?

Choice online poll status 11 July 2009

Choice the consumer advocacy group is running a poll on the question; Do you think the government is doing enough to drive competition in the grocery sector?

With straightened economics time still ahead of us all, it might be wise for the Rudd Government to take heed of community sentiment.

The now defunct GroceryChoices as set up by government may have been doomed to disappoint the consumer, but that doesn't mean that the big supermarket chains should be able to continue dominating market/pricing policy in the same manner as they have in the past.

If Choice goes forward with its reported 'war' on Coles and Woolworths, I suspect that it will quickly garner more sustained support than these corporate giants and, a wise politician would be looking now to effect a compromise that would allow an non-industry based price comparison website to go ahead with some government funding involved.

Save the Children says no to Rudd Government's Internet censorship plan

Cute Kittehs from The Hughes Family

Save the Children (Australia) celebrates its 90th anniversary this year and has joined the National Children's and Youth Law Centre, Civil Liberties Australia, Australian Library and Information Association, Dr Alex Byrne FALIA, UTS University Librarian, GetUp!, Liberty Victoria, National Association for the Visual Arts, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, and the QLD Council for Civil Liberties in opposing the Rudd-Conroy scheme to impose a national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering scheme which will censor Australian access to the Internet.

Joint Statement on Internet Censorship
We oppose the Government’s plan to censor the internet through mandatory ISP-level internet filtering technology.
While we wholly support measures that effectively prevent the distribution of material refused classification under laws that properly respect free speech, this proposed filter does not meet that aim.
The proposed filter fails to meet the test of an effective child protection measure that respects the rights of children. Mandatory internet filtering curtails our human rights without offering any effective protection for children.
The proposed scheme will also block a range of material that it is perfectly legal to view both online and offline. It will be shrouded in secrecy: there will be no effective oversight of the secret blacklist of banned material. The content to be blocked is currently sites that are ‘refused classification’; it could easily and covertly be expanded to include any material that a Federal Government wishes to suppress.
Any limits on the rights and freedoms of Australians must be accompanied by rigorous transparency and scrutiny; this proposed system does not allow for either.
The filter will be easily circumvented by those with even a basic understanding of information technology or the content providers. It will also miss the vast majority of unwanted content, normally shared using email or file-sharing networks – not through web traffic.
We argue that the tens of millions of dollars that such a scheme will cost should instead be diverted to appropriate child protection authorities and police to prevent the abuse of children, and towards effective community-based education strategies that give children and parents the skills to protect themselves.
Further, PC-level filtering software should be promoted to and provided to parents that wish to protect their children from inappropriate internet content.
No other Western democracy has mandatory ISP-level internet filtering. Australians should not have to sacrifice their freedoms to make Australia a world-leader in ineffective Internet censorship.

Save the Children opposes internet filter

ICANN says Web filters will "embarrass" Aussie Govt